BEFORE: I'm going back to the source - for werewolf films, it doesn't get any more classic than this one. Last year I watched the original "Frankenstein" film, so let's see if this one holds up by comparison.
THE PLOT: A practical man returns to his homeland, is attacked by a creature of folklore, and infected with a horrific disease his disciplined mind tells him can not possibly exist.
AFTER: Hmmm...I'm not sure I'm buying into this plot. The simple fact is that the original "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" movies were based on novels, and the Wolf Man story is pure Hollywood, it seems like an attempt to capitalize on the success of the other two franchises. (Yes, I realize there might be an old folk tale or two about lycanthropy, but nothing as fleshed out as a Gothic novel.)
So, as a result, this film's not really sure what it wants to be. Is it Talbot Castle that's cursed, or the Talbot family, or is it a Gypsy curse, and Lawrence Talbot just in the wrong place at the wrong time? He inherits the curse after being bitten by Bela, an old gypsy in wolf form. From then on, the movie is filled with little inconsistencies. Bela was in 4-legged wolf form, for example, but we never see Talbot go "full wolf", just in a weird in-between stage, like a very hairy man, which seems to be necessitated by the lack of movie magic.
So the make-up and the effects are laughable by today's standards - it's hard to imagine audiences being truly scared by this one. Kids today would just watch this and think, "But that's just a guy with fur on his face, right?" When I watched movies as a kid, I didn't buy into those time-lapse transitions from man to werewolf and back, which are just about as fake as it gets.
It gets worse - we see Talbot transform and he's wearing an undershirt - but then in wolf form he's got a dark shirt over it. So, the mindless werewolf took the time to get fully dressed before heading out to the moors? Talbot gets bitten, but there's no scar, then later in the film he shows people his scar - huh? How did the scar come back?
Also, they hadn't even established the connection to the full moon in this film, they just say that the cursed people turn into werewolves as "certain times of year", like when the wolfsbane is in bloom - when the heck is that? And the "rule" about only shooting a werewolf with a silver bullet comes from this film - it's a true fact that the screenwriter just made up, probably to keep the character alive until the third reel...
Jeez, you're making up a whole new horror genre, and you can't even get your story straight...and why was it so important to tell us that Talbot was good with electronics, and had been working at an observatory - that's a plotline that went absolutely nowhere.
Also starring Bela Lugosi (last seen in "Son of Frankenstein"), Claude Rains (last seen in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"), and Ralph Bellamy (last seen in "Rosemary's Baby", but this guy was old back in 1941...)
RATING: 4 out of 10 pentagrams
SPOOK-O-METER: 2 out of 10. This might have been genuinely scary back in the day, but it doesn't hold a candle to the current crop of monster films.
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